1. Field
The following description relates to an electronic device including a multi-band antenna that supports carrier aggregation (CA) using a non-segmented conductive border member.
2. Description of Related Art
Portable electronic devices, such as smartphones, being designed to include a metal exterior have become popular. The metal exterior has drawn much attention to improve external rigidity and to protect an interior of the portable electronic device.
For example, a conductive border member is used in the exterior design of the electronic device, and a conductor frame is embedded in the interior of the electronic device.
Research and development is being conducted to use the conductive border member of portable electronic devices using metal exterior as a portion of an antenna.
For example, in existing antenna using the conductive border member of the portable electronic device or in using conductive border member as a portion of the antenna, a gap (or segmentation) may be formed, from which a portion of the conductive border member exposed externally is removed. The gap allows the segmented conductive border member to be used as the antenna.
As such, segmenting the conductive border member may secure a length and performance of the antenna. However, segmenting of the conductive border member may spoil an appearance and have a low yield upon metal processing.
Further, to secure antenna performance, most of the electronic devices may use the segmented conductive border member having a total of four segmentations including two upper segmentations and two lower segmentations.
For example, the four segmentations use separate independent conductive border members at centers of the upper and lower portions thereof as the antenna. Also, in the four segmentations, a separate manufacturing process is needed to for the segmented portions upon manufacturing of a metal frame and, therefore, productivity may be reduced and a defect rate may be increased. As a result, in an electronic device with a non-segmented conductive border member, not the existing segmented structure, a need to secure antenna performance needs to be increased.
Meanwhile, as a part of an evolution trend of a long term evolution-advanced (LTE-advanced) communications system, carrier aggregation (CA) technology that is a core technology of 3rd Generation Partnership Project release-10 (3GPP Rel-10) has standardized technologies of combining more than two carriers to efficiently use a frequency and to improve a maximum transmission rate.
As an example of communications methods of supporting the foregoing LTE-advanced carrier aggregation (CA) may be communication methods, such as, for example, 1UL/2DLs inter-band CA, 1UL/3DLs inter-band CA, or TDD-FDD CA.
A downlink data transmission rate may be up to 150 Mbps (category 4UE) in the case of 2-layer transmission, in which the number of receiver antennas of the electronic device is two, and may be up to 300 Mbps (category 6UE) in the case of 4-layer transmission, in which the number of receiver antennas of the electronic device is four, or when the number of receiver antennas is two and 2DL CA is used. To this end, a technique of designing a receiver antenna has been highlighted as an important problem.
Further, due to the structure of the electronic device using the conductive border member, the number of receiver antennas may be increased and, therefore, an isolation problem between the antennas may occur. As a result, the isolation problem needs to be solved.
Considering the foregoing matters, to support frequencies for each communications company in each country, an electronic device using the conductive border member needs an improved and innovative antenna structure.